


Comfort Food (and other memories from long ago)

by SweeterThanArsenic



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Ford Pines-centric, Gen, stuffing kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweeterThanArsenic/pseuds/SweeterThanArsenic
Summary: Ford runs out of rations and decides to check the Mystery Shack’s pantry. There he finds jellybeans and makes several gluttonous decisions in quick succession.
Kudos: 9





	1. Don't Make Jellybeans The Main Course

When he runs out of dry rations, there’s nowhere for Ford to look but the pantry.

Most of the house doesn’t feel like his anymore: new furniture, new signs, new people, and all those parts of it that are more run-down than he remembers, as bad as his memory got near the end. But the pantry feels about the same. There’s everything he remembers on the top row: bran cereal and numerous brands of canned food and dry pasta, along with a large can of coffee grounds. But there’s also… brown meat, whatever that is.

When his gaze dips the illusion breaks: there’s a box of sugary cereal that he definitely never bought: chips, popcorn, stuffing, a completely-impractical container of gummy worms, and several bottles of “Pitt” soda.

But there’s also jellybeans.

An unconscious smile spreads over Ford’s face as he takes it out, holding it with both hands as he looks through the clear container. There’s dust in the grooves of the lid, but someone seems to have brushed most of it off recently and eaten their way through some of the volume. Someone with tiny fingers.

Ford takes it to the sink to wipe it down carefully, just luxuriating in the knowledge that he has access to Beany Gel brand jelly beans again. Not a knock-off that tastes like toothpaste, or that is actually colorful but exactly like a more nutritious bean, but good old-fashioned Earth sugar and sugar substitutes, usually but not always shaped like a bean.

He never thought he’d have jellybeans again.

He opens the jar, scooping out a handful and examining them on the lid he conveniently laid on the counter. They’re all near identical, neatly rounded and smoothly textured. He pops them into his mouth, savoring the taste.

That should be it, really, but he’s always had a weakness for jellybeans. He can never have just one.

They taste like the possibility of discovery, like knowing that the next handful might have a little irregular bean in it. Except this black one. It tastes like licorice.

Before long Ford figures out a method, scooping out a handful, examining them for an odd one, then eating the rejects (or reverse-rejects, from what the factory would consider _normal._ Ha! ).

Ford’s not even looking at the jar by the time he finds what he’s hoping for: a little irregular bean.

This one is two beans, half-merged, but not totally.

If he ate it, it’d taste like blueberries. But right now Ford only tastes regret.

He looks back at the jar and finds that he already ate almost the entire thing. There’s only a thin layer of jellybeans coating the bottom of the jar. It seems like a shame to just leave it there, almost-finished but not quite.

These ones taste like cherry, orange, coffee (supposedly), and whatever purple is supposed to mean. Grape? It doesn’t really taste like grape. All it tastes like now is sugar. And now his original intention, to eat something nutritious now that he’s out of supplies, is nearly forgotten.

What’s he got to do to get the taste out of his mouth?

He reads the calorie count off the jar, frowning as he does so. Ford sighs and calculates what it would take to eat an equivalent amount of vitamins, minerals, and protein as all the calories he just consumed. It’s not something that actually matters, in the grand scheme of things- no one is counting but himself.

But he can’t get in the habit of thinking of himself as no one. And he can’t literally live off sugar, either.

Luckily, he’s no stranger to improvised meal planning.

He takes a large pot and fills it partially with water, setting it to boil, then looks around at what he has available. The fridge has brussel sprouts— what he is now going to refer to as trace amounts of brussel sprouts, since it’s not enough. 

He looks at the pantry again. Chips have trace amounts of vitamin C, don’t they? And it’s not like a little salt will hurt him.

Like this, Ford empties mostly the canned section: meat and beans and bread and a few other things. It’ll have to count as seasoning.

As the pot heats up, the smell of his dish fills the air, some mixture of salt and meat and even bread. It doesn’t smell like anything he’s eaten before, but that doesn’t seem to hinder his stomach in any way. Ford is left to swallow his drool while he waits for it to cool so he can begin the process of clearing both his taste buds and his digestive system.

Ford scoops out a serving, placing the meat on top so that the juices will soak into the stuffing that cushions it. He can’t see as many of the chip fragments as he crushed to put into it, but some of them are still there. He’ll see if it adds some texture to the dish.

The first bowlful goes down easily. He didn’t need to use any salt to make it well salted, but he still adds a little pepper. The novelty of real pepper from a real pepper shaker is surreal. But even though he finished one bowl he’ll need to eat at least two more to finish the pot, and he already feels full. Time has passed, his stomach is settling, and his brain has gotten some erroneous messages that he should stop. Since it’s his brain, it really should know better, but he is only human, after all. It is going to tell him to stop or start eating and sleeping whether he likes it or not.

His next bowlful is eaten more slowly, still with generous scoops of his spoon, chewing the savory probably-meat and thinking about the nature of humanity, and his body in particular. It’s been a while since he sat down anywhere but his desk, let alone to eat. It definitely makes the brussel sprouts taste better than they would if he ate them on the go.

The last bowl is more beans than the rest, as if to mock the decision that kicked off this dinner. He stares down at it, trying to tune out the part of him that is yelling that he needs to stop eating.

Much as he missed jellybeans, there’s a lot to be said for regular canned beans.

It reminds him of sitting with a friend, in a different way than jellybeans do. This memory is more recent, less suppressed. More bittersweet.

The way neither beans nor jellybeans are, really.

Ford scrapes the bowl for the last dregs of flavor. Normally he would attribute that to hunger, but he’s awfully, achingly full now.

Earth food is delicious, especially when he’s the one who cooked it.

He sighs, and it makes him all too aware that his sweater, stretchy as it is, is on over a button-up.

He plays around with the button over the cloth, then washes the bowl as quickly and thoroughly as he can.

Some things are better done in private.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ford x Jellybeans is the real OTP. Sorry Ford x Sleep shippers, you're missing out.


	2. Midnight Snack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A funny coda with everyone who isn't Ford.

The next morning, Mabel finds Dipper writing something down on a paper, his camcorder in hand.

“What is it?”

“Mabel, I think the candy eating monster is on the loose again. Look!” Dipper gestures dramatically to the trash can, where a sparkling clean jar is sitting ominously on top of some garbage, completely empty.

“I thought stuff we threw in the Bottomless Pit wouldn’t come back after 24 hours passed.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure either. Is it a return, or is this just confirmation that they’re a species?”

Mabel opens the pantry, squinting. “I think it ate my chips. Does it eat chips?”

“Wait, what?” Dipper abandoned his writing to stare at the newly barren shelves, where two cans of chips, the front row of canned food, and an entire jar of stuffing had all made a dramatic disappearance.

“I don’t know…” he murmured to himself, just in time for Stan to walk by.

“You don’t know what?” Stan asked.

“I’m trying to figure out if the candy-eating monster is back, or if it’s a new subspecies. All the jellybeans are gone.”

“All the jellybeans-” Stan’s eyes darted over to the cabinet, then a weird look settled on his face. “Don’t look into it too much, kid. Monsters aren’t the only thing in this house that eat those.”

“But what would eat all of them in one night?” Dipper asked. “Stan? Grunkle Stan?”

Stan walked away, chuckling.


End file.
